Breathe underwater
by SlytherinElektra
Summary: He won't leave. Will won't leave Hannibal's bedside until he wakes up again. There's a silent presence near the bed of the mysteriously ill Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
1. Chapter 1

Will was on a hospital room, alone with a unconscious person yet again.

The nurses and doctors knew him. The cleaning staff knew him. He knew he should have gone home a long time ago. Knew being there was useless. Knew it probably didn't change anything if he stayed – knew that he didn't notice. Understood that he would be of better use investigating the cases they had. Knew this was pointless and wasn't good for him.

But he had to stay there. Needed to.

There was a strange calmness about the hospital bed, so white and clean and peaceful. The curtains were white too and the sheets on the hospital bed. Nobody spoke. Outside, in the real world, many things were happening, kept happening. The world went round – there were students, there were murders, there were people he knew, people he'll meet, people who would forever be strangers. But he didn't want to face all of that. It had been enough, he had enough. Enough darkness, enough pain and nightmare, more than enough thoughts in his head.

But the world seemed to have stopped somehow, in that room. The world was trapped, stopped, frozen. He didn't want it to move.

But it di, time went by, slowly. The seconds that passed were marked by the beeping of the machines. Beep. Beep. Beep. Sometimes the machines and their beeping went crazy and doctors and nurses rushed in and told Will to leave. He didn't like that. He didn't like getting out of his bubble where nothing happened. He liked his little bubble of nothingness, his peace. His angst-ridden, nightmare-plagued, horrible joke of a reality.

Sometimes the outside world appeared and intruded his dream of nothingness and hospital life. One such intrusion of the outside was the occasional visit from Alana Bloom. He'd asked her to feed his dogs when she could (he only went home once a day, to shower and change clothes) and sometimes she went to the hospital to talk. She told him to get out, get back to his house, or back to the field, or back to the university. To get back to his life. She asked him to talk to him, share his feelings, let them loose. Because apparently bottling up things wasn't good. But Will didn't want any more people in his head. And there were many things he didn't want Bloom to know. So many dark places and questionable thoughts and actions. He already had someone for that.

He would wait.

Wait until things got back to normal.

Wait until Hannibal woke up again.

It had all started on a rainy Tuesday, a couple of months back. Will had gone to Dr. Lecter's consult, distressed by images in his head, feeling the urgent need to hear the man's soothing voice. Hannibal had been paler than usual but Will hadn't thought much of it, focused on his own troubles. He had talked and the doctor had listened and offered his advice, his interpretation of things. Business as usual.

In one of the moments, the doctor had closed his eyes in pain, and sought support in the table behind him, swaying a bit. Will asked if he was all right and Hannibal admitted to feeling _slightly unwell_ but convinced the patient it was nothing to worry about. So they kept talking. The session continued normally.

But just after saying goodbye - after Will had turned to go home, he heard a noise behind him, like something falling heavily on the ground. He turned around and saw the psychiatrist on the floor, unconscious. (_Of course_, Will thought some time later, _trust Hannibal to postpone collapsing unconscious until he'd finished with his patient._) The damned man was even elegant for that. Will ran to his friend and approached him, asked him to wake up. Nothing happened. He asked for help, loudly, but no one seemed to be in the building at that hour. It was dark, too dark.

So Will did what he had to, and with shaky hands pulled out his cell phone to call an ambulance. Maybe there was hope yet and he was overreacting and before help arrived Hannibal would wake up and apologize for the disturbance. That would be great. Because Will really didn't want to deal with all the medical personnel by himself. He didn't want any of that to be happening, so out of the blue. Hannibal was supposed to be his anchor. The part that helped fix his broken mind – he couldn't be broken, too, or everything would collapse.

It was not fair. Hannibal was many things, he was shady and a bit manipulative maybe, but he was there. He listened.

Now he didn't even have that.

The rest of things kept happening but now Hannibal was not there to listen to him. There was only a shadow of the man he once knew.

When the medics came the doctor was still unconscious, limp, eyes closed. It was unsettling. Will rode with him in the back of the ambulance, while machines were attached to the body of his friend and he was asked a lot of questions. If the doctor was allergic to something. If he had fainting episodes before. If he was taking any medication. Will simply had no idea. He felt useless and wanted to get out. It was very loud and colorful and people were speaking and moving and he was worried. It felt so unreal.

Hannibal was the composed one of the two of them, the strong one, the column. This things did not happen to him. He was the scary protector of lost souls – not someone this vulnerable. But there he was, unconscious, bordering a coma-state (apparently) and the doctors had no idea of what was wrong with him. He had a fever and trouble to breathe – that was fixed with antipyretic meds and a nasal cannula, but he never woke up. Even if they treated the symptoms they couldn't figure out the cause. He seemed to be ill for no reason.

The doctor's hair fell on his sweaty forehead, and the skin was too pale. It felt wrong.

And the days went by.

Will's nightmares changed since he was there. Sometimes Hannibal was dead and he was smiling at his body, feeling free of that burden (_those made him feel so so guilty_). Sometimes he saw himself poisoning the doctor's wine so Lecter would stop playing with his mind. But there had been no poison. _That can't be_, Will repeated himself, _that can't be._ Sometimes it was the other way round and Hannibal came at him with a great knife and a smile full of teeth. And he was scared. But then he would woke up and see the man on his hospital bed, still.

People brought flowers. They brought fine chocolates and cards, plenty of cards. From patients and from colleagues and from people Will imagined to be friends or relatives or acquaintances with "_wishing you a speedy recovery_" sort of messages. Sometimes when he was bored Will read them all. They'd become like close friends. They were certainly easier to handle than people and didn't answer him or look funny at him. nothing happened.

Will knew eventually he would have to go back to something that resembled life. That this was a ridiculous overreaction to someone he knew getting ill. People got sick and died every day and the world didn't stop. His world, on the contrary, had been paused for too long. But he couldn't go back there, face everything and everyone. His fragile mind. The rest of the people. FBIs, students, cashiers, waiters. He couldn't face them. Not anymore.

So he waited.

He became a silent presence next to Hannibal's bed, waiting, reading cards, looking out of the window.

Waiting to have every piece of his life back.

Waiting for those eyes to open and for his nightmare, the one he was having in those unending waking hours, to finally end.

A/N: It's strange, out of character and would never happen. I know. But there's troubled Will and there's sentiment. That's gotta count for something, right?

Hope you enjoyed.

You know you want to review ;)


	2. Chapter 2

There was people coming and going. Nurses, doctors, the occasional visitor.

Outside, the weather had worsened. The wind blew and the trees shook, even the biggest ones. It rained and then rained and rained again and the wind was cold. Will felt like he hadn't seen the sun in years. Which really didn't help. It was like an alternate reality where the sun and the good weather didn't even exist. Where the sun was just a distant memory of a better life, something that was never really his. Something his mind had invented to make him hopeful, to not give up completely. Something of another time, another place. Something that day after day he hoped would appear and never did. It was making people sad and angry, they kept complaining about it. No sun. Only endless cloudy dark days that became weeks and the hope that the sun day would one day come again.

A bit like Hannibal's voice.

He hadn't heard it in so long... but he hoped. He hoped he would hear it again.

Will had hope.

He remembered it sometimes, heard it in his head - it haunted him. He remembered the first time they met, when they were investigating Hobbs. He hadn't liked him. He was too clinical and knew too much about him just looking at him and hearing him speak. Too much. He'd wanted to get inside his head and that was never good. But after the horrible experience in Hobbs' house they had gotten closer, if only a bit. He was back at the man's office and then back again. Hannibal had helped him put his thoughts in order. Helped him accept feelings that were there before they turned into nightmares or hallucinations. He had been there. He had spoken with him, with Crawford, with Bloom. Sometimes he felt it was Lecter the one that moved everything behind them, the one that changed everything and made people do what he wanted, see what he wanted. Like an evil puppeteer who held all the strings. Sometimes Will thought Hannibal was the evil force that was driving him insane.

Others times he felt the doctor was the only thing preventing him from going insane and crossing that last line. And he felt that he needed that man more than he needed anything or anyone else.

And sometimes he saw the psychiatrist as a victim. Will knew there wasn't any evidence, but he was convinced there was foul play involved in this. Hannibal was too careful to get suddenly sick like this. And the fact that nobody knew what was wrong... If he died now nobody would think it was murder and the killer would remain free. The perfect crime.

As the days went by, Hannibal started getting worse, a bit every day. He was in a coma now, paler and than ever. One could still see it was him, his face was still there, with those striking features - but it was as if the sickness had gotten deeper on him, infiltrated the face. There were dark shadows under his eyes, even if he _slept _all day and night. Will liked to watch the slight rise and fall of the chest and leave the rest of thoughts behind. Focus on that. A sign of life. Like there was nothing else in the world. Like he wasn't even there, didn't even exist. There was only Hannibal, breathing.

Some time later understanding and following for once Bloom's advice, Will had tried to leave. Went back home and stayed there. Tried to read. Tried to cook. Tried to talk to other people. Tried to go back to the university. But every time he tried to do something like that there was something that stopped him. He stopped himself before calling someone, before going away. He froze. He didn't really want to do all those things. This wasn't his scene, it wasn't his time. So he went back. He went back there, again. To the white room, to the peace, to the doctor. It had become his world and he didn't want to change that.

Sometimes, Will spoke to Hannibal. Because it's apparently good to talk to people in a coma? No, he was just bored. Sometimes he would tell Hannibal about his nightmares, others about his youth, others he would simply comment the tv programmes.

And then one day, there was an unexpected visitor. Will had been on the verge of falling asleep on a chair when he saw her: the one and only Beverly Katz in the door, with an awkward smile.

"Hey, can I come in? I brought you some magazines."

Will tried to compose himself, woke up a bit, and nodded. Katz entered.

"I thought you were on holiday or something when you stopped coming. Then Jack told me everything. Must have been rough." She said and went close to the bed. "How is he?"

"Not good. They're saying that if his breathing gets worse they will have to put him on a ventilator."

Will didn't like that. Those damned doctors were shattering the little hope he still had.

"That bad, huh? Jeez, poor man. What do you think it's wrong?"

"They did something to him, I'm sure. Something subtle, something that doesn't show up in regular tests. There's someone out there who has done this, but since there's no evidence I can't just open an investigation because there is no evidence, no signs of nothing and I..."

Will tried to calm himself. Take a deep breath. He'd seen other people die before and it hadn't affected him so much. Why was this so different?

"Well, very intelligent people tend to have very intelligent enemies as well." Katz stated. That was true.

They were in silence for a while but it wasn't awkward - it was a comfortable silence. Then they talked about old cases for a bit.

"Say what" Katz said, after some musing. "I've got a friend at the toxicology department, maybe I could talk to the lab here, ask them to get some blood samples and send them to her. She can have a deeper look, look for masking agents that may have hidden whatever's causing all this, look for anything weird the labs here may have missed."

Finally, a glimmer of hope. Justified hope.

"You would do that?"

"Yeah, I'll tell her to do it as a favour, I don't think there will be any problem."

"Thank you. It's...it's very kind of you."

"Don't worry about it. We have a new guy working with us... god, he's terrible. He thinks he's so smart but he really isn't. He's not half as intelligent as either of you were, and is very annoying. Such a high-pitched voice, horrible, really."

They shared a smile. It was nice being appreciated.

Eventually, Katz left and Will was again alone with his thoughts and the comatose doctor. It had been nice. No one had told him to leave, no one had told him to live - his former co-worker had simply accepted that he was there and offered to help. And maybe there was hope yet. Maybe they would find the cause for this and start an investigation and eventually Hannibal would wake up and maybe, just maybe, this would all end. This would go well again.

That night he dreamed about the people he knew, looking at him, disappointed.

_What are you doing, Will?_

Bloom, Crawford, Abigail- everyone, surrounding him.

_You should have let him die._

They looked at him as if he'd committed a crime.

_He's manipulating you even from that bed._

No, he wasn't. He was in complete control of his actions. Wasn't he?

_You will regret this._

Maybe he could change it. End this situation once and for all, so that nothing like that would ever happen again. So that Hannibal's influence would be gone, forever. He took the pillow and walked towards the bed. Will smothered the man in the bed, slowly but surely. It was easy. He never woke up. And that was it, the end. He had killed him.

When Will woke up, it was night and he was still in the hospital room. And he hadn't killed anyone. He breathed, relieved. And started wondering how long he would have until he actually did those things he dreamed.

"Wake up, will you?" He said to the man on the bed. "I still need you."

A/N: This is even weirder than the previous one and not a lot happens. And I don't even know why I'm posting anymore. But there it is. Things will happen, rest assured. Do comment, what you liked, your theories, everything! Feedback is much appreciated ;)

You know you want to review!


	3. Chapter 3

He's looking at an elegant and very calm man, gun ready.

Will doesn't want to shoot - but he will if he has to. Because the needle the man has could have poison. Part of him really does want to shoot him, pull the trigger, even if the man is not a threat. Because he deserves it. Because his actions have caused him so much pain, so much anguish, so many lost hours. Even if he is to blame too, it was ultimately this man's fault, all the suffering, all the days he'd spent in that hospital, how he suddenly broke down. He broke his paddle and broke him on the way. He'd been hanging by a thread and this man had attacked and practically severed it. He'd cost him dear.

And not to mention what Doctor Lecter had gone through, the pain he could only begin to imagine and the lasting effects who knew this could have. Who knew how many people this man had killed that making them passed as natural causes. Clean, efficient, undetectable.

He had to stop him.

The man merely smiled while Will held out his gun. He smiled.

* * *

_That morning_

He had moaned and waited long enough. After Katz's visit, Will had been thinking and he'd been putting together some theories of who Hannibal's attacker might be. Someone as clever as he was. Someone who knew what he was doing, perfectly.

It was two day later when Katz went back with the results of the tests.

There were some odd numbers, some things that shouldn't have been there and some things that were missing, but nothing that explained what was wrong.  
There were also traces of the medicine they had given the man, a dangerous cocktail of chemicals, medicines, salines and all types of allegedly therapeutic things. The medical personnel had tried everything, all possible treatments, even risked meds reacting badly to each other just to try and figure out what was wrong. To get any sort of clue, which they didn't have, and made their top-notch equipment and their experience appear useless.

But still, even in that mess, there was a clue. The only clue he needed. The one clue that solved the mystery. Hiding in plain sight.

It was the medicine. It had always been the medicine.

Will saw himself through the man's eyes. A man of an extraordinary intelligence but not always recognised as he would want to be. He enjoyed this. The process. He wasn't in it for the killing, no, that was only the unavoidable end. No, he liked seeing his peers lost, seeing them struggle and he liked watching the decadence he had created. The unfathomable mystery he had created.

_And no one knows what is happening._

_Only me._

_Not only am I killing this man, I am puzzling the entire medical community. I am above all of them._

This man enjoyed the cards, the visitors, the doctors teaming up trying to find a response. The rest of them didn't know and they would never know, and that was the beauty of it. He could heal and kill at his will, even drag out the agony of the patients he chose without anybody closing in on him. He was hiding in plain sight, in front of them all. He wondered the halls and entered the rooms, and no one looked twice because he was a doctor. He injected poisons into people and nobody seemed to mind because he was a doctor and they know what they're doing.

He probably liked choosing remarkable people, people with studies and a good status. Intelligent people that were suddenly defenceless in his hands. So when Hannibal Lecter -the renowned psychiatrist- appeared in his hospital it was like a gift.

And they didn't know. The rest of them. They called the symptoms_ idiopathic_ because they simply didn't know. But he did. And the beauty was in the mystery. In them not knowing while you do. In the decay you have provoked even in the greatest minds and bodies while the rest of the world remains powerless.

_Like a magician's trick. Once people know how it's done, it loses all its charm._

_And I am the best magician of them all._

He probably goes by the room, every now and then, to admire his work. Not when they died, no, his interest is in the process, entirely on it. That's why it's so progressive. He likes to see the little things he goes achieving, the pallor, the ventilator, everything. Until they die and everybody rules it off as natural causes and it's another mission accomplished. Proof that he is so much better.

There are no cameras in the rooms and the he only uses things that have the same composition as prescribed drugs, so there would be no proof.

_I am God._

_I save and end lives as I please, and no one can stop me._

Will was barefoot when he came to this realisation and ran to the hall. He didn't even care. He was almost certain this was how it was happening. And he had to stop it.

While going around the hallway he saw an orderly that had worked many nights and already knew him by name. As he did.

"Jason, has anyone been on the room while I was gone? Maybe a doctor that is not related to the case, someone who's being on Doctor Lecter's room more than once... who seemed interested but kind of happy... maybe even read the get well cards."

The orderly looked at Will as if he was crazy.

Maybe he was.

"Please, it's important."

The man thought about for a minute. He didn't know every patient in the ward, but he knew the coma guy Will visited. Tall, good-looking. Bad prognosis. And there was another presence besides nice scruffy Will Graham, come think of it.

"Now that you mention it, there's a surgeon who comes by every now and then, Dr. Kingsley, says he is fond of medical mysteries. He's apparently one of the top assets of the hospital... An arrogant snob if you ask me. And Shauna mentioned he'd seen him on the room reading the cards, we just assumed he knew the man."

_Gotcha._

"Where is this doctor now?"

"Sorry, I don't know. Wait, you think Dr. Kingsley has done something funky to your friend?"

"Could be."

And without more talking, Will left a confused Jason standing there and went to find someone who could help him. The nurse's station. Someone there probably knew where that doctor was.

"I'm looking for Dr. Kingsley."

"Let me see...He doesn't come in till four. Why?"

"Just... nothing, thank you."

He had him. He freaking had him. But he needed proof. Right now, it was all a big hunch. Yes, it was probable that if he remained there and asked that the doctor wasn't allowed on the room Lecter would get better, but that was circumstantial at best. No, if he wanted this guy out of the streets for good if he would have to catch him at it.

But of course, the man was too careful to show himself when he was around. So instead, Will pretended to leave while hiding in a staff room. Shauna, the nurse that had noticed dr. Kingsley in the room was on duty that night, and she'd been told to warn them if Kingsley came by again.

The hours went by slowly. Four. Five. Six, seven, eight - people were having dinner now. Not Will. He was waiting.

At 1am, Shauna called and said Kingsley was going Lecter's way. Of course. He probably had someone to tip him off when Will was absent so he could do his business. Or some other method of knowing. Maybe a camera in Dr. Lecter's room. Who knew.

He was about to inject something transparent on Lecter's IV when Will stopped him.

"Stop right there!"

The man threw him a dismissive look.

"Why? What are you going to do to me if I won't?"

He was smiling. He was asking for it.

And Will could do it. He could. Part of him wanted to. That could be poison on the needle he was holding, it could be deadly. He would be just defending someone who couldn't defend himself.

There was a minute of pure tension.

And Kingsley was smiling.

"What the hell is that, Kingsley? What were you doing with my patient?" A familiar voice said behind Will. It was Dr. Hammett, the woman that had attended Hannibal when he got here. And there were some members of hospital security with her. Kingsley's smile dropped. It was over. It was finally over.

The following days Dr. Kingsley was on the news several times. There were details of how he messed the proportions of meds, how he used masking agents in an almost undetectable way. How he played with side effects and drug on drug interactions to get the symptoms he wanted. The man was extremely unhappy about that. He liked creating mysteries, illusions and now the damn guts of his tricks were being exposed to the public. The had investigated him and has uncovered the cases of four more people that had previously died due to unknown or unclear causes after being treated by him or in a ward where he worked. They were calling him The Reaper Doctor.

Will slept better, much better. He realised that if he hadn't been so infatuated with Lecter's disease, if he had said farewell to the man and simply went back to his life Hannibal would have probably died, while Kingsley was free. His craziness had saved him.

It was a welcome nice thought after weeks of hell.

There were still things that remained unclear, like why had Hannibal fainted in the consult in the first place, or if Kingsley had been in this alone of if he had accomplices (in the pharmacy department, perhaps?) but those seemed less important. Dr. Lecter was getting better, quickly.

Many people congratulated him on uncovering Kingsley on his own. Even if he wasn't a fan of people and their attention, he could appreciate the kind words. A sister of one of the previous victims had even wrote him a letter and called him a hero.

It was a sunny tuesday and Will was reading quietly in the hospital room. The white, quiet, peaceful room. But not silent. Because silence was finally broken.

"Wh-...Where am I?"

Hannibal had woken up feeling horribly, as if his body was made of lead. His whole being hurt and he didn't remember how he got there. The dark eyes looked around trying to recognise the room, until they landed on a familiar figure.

"Will?"

Will smiled.

"Welcome back."

A/N: I did an _in media res_! Experimentiiiing! Could be continued with hurt/comfort scenes of recovery and an explanation of how Hannibal became sick in the first place or not. Hope you enjoyed it!** Edit: **Corrected some of the mistakes. That's what happens when you upload things at 2am. Hope this is better ;)

Please do review! Make an author happy!


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